


Letting

by englishable



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Maybe - Freeform, Pre-shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 07:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14869727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishable/pseuds/englishable
Summary: Carmen recognized the man who brought her son beaten and half-senseless through the door, by sight if not by name, although she couldn't figure what possible reason Miguel had for calling him "Sensei." She supposed she'd figure it out.





	Letting

**Author's Note:**

> I was talked into watching “Cobra Kai” against my better judgement, and here we are. I like Carmen’s character quite a bit, from what we’ve been shown so far, and I really hope we get more from her in the second season. 
> 
> This is set between Episode 3 and Episode 4, or technically during and immediately after the flashbacks shown to us at the beginning Episode 4. Possible very faint premonitions of Johnny/Carmen if you want to see it.

...

And after she finished washing her hands for a second time, after she put away the gauze rolls and the iodine and the aspirin bottle and changed out the dripping bag of ice for his ribs, Carmen locked herself into the bathroom with a shirt she had helped her son remove – he could not raise his arms above his head,  though he had tried several times with the stupid, vindictive stubbornness of a mule – and sat down on the toilet seat to cry.

There was nothing personal about it. She did it with the same pragmatism she reserved for drawing blood samples at the hospital: now you’ll feel a pinch, breathe out and don’t look, this will be over in a minute. She even remembered to turn on the faucet and leave the shirt soaking in the sink, blood swirling away down the drain. 

Carmen put her hands over her eyes. 

Lord, she said to herself, oh Lord, for a minute I thought he’d been killed.

She had recognized the man who brought him, of course, who had come through the door with her son half-senseless in his arms, turning sideways while he did so as not to knock Miguel’s head against the frame. She had seen him in the parking lot before, at the mailboxes, but while Miguel had mentioned his name several times she could not recall it then and there: Jacob, Joshua, Joseph, James, or maybe it was John, like the young apostle who ran fastest and therefore reached the empty tomb first. Once the man had strayed close enough for Carmen to catch a bitter and aggrieved smell of liquor on his clothes.

“I’m sorry,” had been the first words from John Lawrence’s mouth, even as the door swung open and she let out a scream. “He didn’t want you to – ”

Now Carmen rested her head against her knees and listened to the hiss of water in the sink. A pulse thundered between her ears. She would have launched a slap at the man, probably, right across his face, except from the way he stood there looking down at Miguel she suspected he would have kept himself still and accepted the blow without a sound. 

He had not done the practical thing either, Carmen thought. He had not called her on the phone or asked for an ambulance. Instead he had put Miguel inside that red, rattling little car and brought him home, like something a guilty high school boy might do for a friend after a night of no-good troublemaking; he had not even parked in the nearest spot to their apartment, and Miguel could not have walked, which meant John had likely carried him the whole way.  

Sensei, Miguel had called after him as he left. Sensei, no, wait.

She straightened to dry her cheeks, breathed out, then twisted off the tap and let it drip.

...

**Author's Note:**

> I suspect Miguel’s attempts to convince his mother about further karate lessons omitted certain minor details, i.e. the matter of being tied up and thrown into the school’s swimming pool, but we may never know.


End file.
